Warming Up on a Cold Day

 

RS Prussia chocolate pot

QUESTION: I recently purchased what looks like a porcelain coffee pot. However, it has a decorative spout that has what seems like a bridge across its top. The floral design is delicately painted and on the bottom is stamped the name R.S. Prussia. Can you tell me anything about this piece?

ANSWER: What looks like a coffee pot is actually a chocolate pot, used by Victorians to serve hot chocolate on cold winter days. 

By the mid-17th century, chocolate was well established and sought after by the well-to-do in Italy, France, Germany, and finally England. From the time Spanish explorers brought chocolate back to Europe, people served chocolate hot. But the chocolate tasted bitter, so it became necessary to add sugar, vanilla, and jasmine to it to make it more palatable. Since chocolate was expensive, only the wealthy could afford this exotic drink.

Chocolate from bean to processed

Mechanization during the Industrial Revolution made processing of cacao beans more efficient and brought down labor costs. A Dutch chemist, Coenraad Van Houten patented a process that defatted and alkalinized the chocolate in 1828, making possible the mass production of cheap chocolate in powdered and solid forms.  

As chocolate's popularity spread throughout the Continent, people needed vessels to serve it. Chocolate pots began to appear in a variety of forms and materials, including earthenware, tin, pewter, tin-plated copper, porcelain, gold, and silver.

Mayan earthenware chocolate pot

Potters created the first commercial chocolate pots of earthenware, but by the early 19th century, porcelain ones began to appear, coinciding with the decrease in the cost of chocolate and its availability to everyone, regardless of their economic status. At the same time the porcelain chocolate pot changed. Since the cocoa made from the cacao bean dissolved in hot water, whipping the chocolate was no longer necessary, so the hole for the molinet—the wooden stirrer—originally placed in the lid of the pot was no longer needed. By the mid- to late 19th century, most porcelain companies produced chocolate pots with solid lids.

George II silver plated molinet from the 18th century

Silver chocolate pot
with molinet

Factories began producing a variety of affordable chocolate pots for the average household. Production peaked in the mid-to late 1800s, but continued until the mid- 1900s when people’s preference switched from hot chocolate to coffee.

Due to the widespread popularity of hot chocolate, chocolate pots are readily available to collectors, both online and at shows and auctions. For example, eBay has over 500 chocolate pots listed in active auctions. Prices vary widely and depend on material, with silver pots being more expensive than porcelain pots. Value also depends on the age and maker, as well as where the pot is being sold.

Limoges chocolate pot

While the average porcelain chocolate pot sells for about $100, the higher quality ones from Meissen and R.S. Prussia range in price from $500 to $5,000. Chocolate sets—a pot with six tall cups and sometimes saucers—tend to sell for more than individual pots. Also, larger pots and those with floral or scenic designs are more expensive than smaller ones without decoration. Unmarked pots and those from lesser-known factories often sell for less than $100. 

Before starting a chocolate pot collection, examine a variety of chocolate pots being offered by reputable dealers. Read books on specific manufacturers such as Limoges; R.S.Prussia. and Nippon, and visit repronews.com, e-limoges.com and rsprussia.com online. Lastly, if you’re not sure of a chocolate pot's authenticity, don't buy it.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about world's fairs in the Fall 2020 Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

 

QUESTION: Over the years, I’ve noticed dresser sets at flea markets and antique cooperatives. They seem to be made of some sort of plastic and look like they date from the 1940s and 1950s. I’d like to begin collecting these sets. They’re affordable and some are quite beautiful. What can you tell me about them?

ANSWER: Ever since Ancient Egypt, people, especially women, have been obsessed with their looks. As time went on, the utensils for maintaining a person’s looks evolved into a group with common elements—a brush, comb, mirror, hair receiver, powder puff holder, manicure set, and later on a pin box, atomizer, and button hook. And the material needed to make them evolved from that needed to make billiard balls and dentures. 

Dresser sets were the original make-up organizers. Manufactured from Victorian times through the 1950s, these sets changed in form but not in function. Women prominently displayed them on their vanities and men on their chests. 

The dresser sets you’ve been seeing are made of Celluloid. Most people associate Celluloid with motion picture film. But it was one of several plastics developed in the latter 19th and early 20th century.

Celluloid was first manufactured in 1870 and continued until 1947. After the Civil War there was a need for a substance with moldable properties that could replace dwindling supplies of natural materials, such as ivory. During the latter part of the 1860s, brothers John and Isaiah Hyatt worked on developing a thermoplastic material that not only simulated expensive luxury substances but also became widely used hi other applications In fact, Celluloid became so successful it ultimately gave birth to a thriving American industry. That industry lives on in the collecting of a great variety of Celluloid items that 'range from colorful advertising premiums, embossed albums and decorative storage boxes, to figural toys, ornate jewelry and fancy household and personal accessories.

The development of America’s plastics industry began in Albany, New York, around 1863 when a journeyman printer named John Hyatt began experimenting with various composition substances in an attempt to create an ivory for the manufacture of billiard balls. Elephant ivory was becoming scarce and the billiards industry had offered a $10,000 reward for the invention of a suitable re-placement material. In September 1865, Hyatt applied for a patent on his invention of a billiard ball coaled with a combination of shellac mixed with ivory and bone dust. In 1866 Hyatt and Peter Kinnear formed the Hyatt Billiard Ball Company.

It was around this time when Hyatt discovered that collodion, a liquid solution of pyroxylin (cellulose nitrate and alcohol) that printers brushed on their hands to protect them from ink and paper cuts, formed into a hard, but pliable, clear substance when dried, Hyatt patented the use of liquid collodion as a coating for composition core billiard balls.

In his efforts to perfect the billiard ball, Hyatt enlisted the support of his older brother, Isaiah, a newspaper editor from Rockford, Ill. Together the Hyatts discovered that camphor acted as a plasticizer when combined with solid collodion (cellulose nitrate) and under certain conditions yielded a clear, moldable material. John further developed a "stuffing machine" that forced the material into shape using heat and pressure. They named their substance Celluloid, a word that Isaiah came up with by combining the two words cellulose and colloid.

Ultimately the scarcity of high priced rubber and the abundance of inexpensive Celluloid forced dentists into using the new material. Celluloid eventually became the most popular material for dentures until the introduction of cellulose acetate in 1929 in Newark, New Jersey. It was there that the mass production of the nation's first commercially successful plastic began.

The years that followed found John Hyatt diligently at work building molding machinery and finding successful applications for Celluloid. Harness rings, utensil, handles, knobs and dressing combs were among the earliest of molded articles, introduced for the first time to consumers around 1873.

Clear in its original state, celluloid could therefore be dyed in the finest imitation of expensive luxury substances. In 1874, chemists discovered successful formulas for flawless imitations of genuine coral and tortoiseshell, soon followed by convincing simulations of amber, onyx, and grained ivory. Suddenly, the potential for applications of molded Celluloid expanded, shifting from utilitarian and sporting goods, to decorative and ornamental objects. Beautiful accessories like jewelry, eyeglass frames, fans, hair ornaments, parasol handles and a myriad of other fancy items became available, and immensely popular with those who previously couldn’t afford such luxury items. As a result of its convincing appearance for the genuine material it imitated, Celluloid became coveted for its beauty and fine quality.

Four businessmen involved in the manufacture of natural plastic hair ornaments, dressing combs and novelties, formed the Viscoloid Company of Leominster, Massachusetts, in 1900. One of the founders, Bernard Doyle, had been traveling throughout Europe to purchase horn, when he became acquainted with pyroxylin plastic. Upon his return. Doyle began a series of experiments with the material and determined that it had qualities superior to that of natural materials for the molding of hair combs and accessories.

The more items included in a dresser set, the more rare and valuable it s to collectors. Most often, however, the sets will have a brush, a comb, and a hand mirror. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about world's fairs in the Fall 2020 Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

What Exactly Does "Vintage" Mean?

 

QUESTION: I see the word vintage used a lot on eBay and by antique dealers on Twitter. There doesn’t seem to be any order to it. It seems they consider anything modern as vintage. Can you clarify what vintage means for me?

ANSWER: The word antique has a definite meaning. Since a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 1930, it refers to any items of furniture, ceramics, glass, etc. as being 100 years old or older. The law established what was an antique and what wasn’t for reasons of import. Any items made after 1930, were then considered old or used. 

Of course, as time went by items that were 100 years old were getting newer and newer. Then along came the 20th century. For most of it, there were no items that were considered antiques. During the 1960s, middle class people began to get interested in collecting old things. The post-war generation was all about looking to the future and didn’t want to be bothered with old things.

The word “vintage" originally applied to wine making and the process of picking grapes and creating the finished wine. A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certain wines, it can denote quality.

The people who sell on eBay and other auction site saw that word “quality” and figured why not use the word “vintage” to describe their pieces and make them more attractive to bidders. In this case, vintage means referring to something from the past of high quality. Let’s face it folks, anything from yesterday—the day before today—is from the past and if it’s of good quality, then it technically can be labeled vintage. When the folks on the auction sites saw the word quality, they perceived vintage to mean something old that has lots of value. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always apply.

Online sellers throw the word vintage around like it’s a catchall word that will instantly add

credibility and perceived value to the items they’re selling. You’ll see vintage jewelry instead of estate jewelry, vintage furniture instead of used furniture, and vintage kitchenware instead of used kitchen utensils. It’s all in the wording. 

Unfortunately, middle and lower market antique and flea market dealers have picked up on the use of vintage to describe goods for which they don’t know the age. Since using the word online has become rather successful—you can fool a lot of people a lot of the time, to paraphrase an old saying—they figured they might as well try it. 

In fact, vintage, in relation to old things, actually refers to items that are at least 50 years old. So objects from 1970 and back, usually to about 1930 can be and are referred to as vintage.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about world's fairs in the 2020 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Water, Water Everywhere

 

Fenn water bottle with ring

QUESTION: I discovered this unique water bottle at a local antiques co-op. While most antique water decanters are solid cut or pressed glass, this one comes apart into two pieces. A metal ring, with a rubber gasket to make the seal tight, screws onto the base. The mark on the bottom edge of the top section reads: “Perfection Bottle Co., Wilkes-Barre, PA Pat March 30-97.op part.”  What can you tell me about this type of water bottle?

ANSWER: You, indeed, have found a unique water bottle. Though a revolutionary idea, this type of water bottle appeared in stores for only a few years.

From the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, water bottles were standard items in many American Victorian households. They appeared on dinner tables either alone or with matching glasses and in bedrooms often with a glass that sat upside down over the top of the bottle. They also could be found on the nightstands in hotel rooms and steamship cabins, and on tables in railroad lounge cars. 

Cut glass crystal water bottle

At first, manufacturers made them of elegant cut glass, but that was too expensive for the average person. Some turned to using pressed glass in a variety of patterns which lowered their cost.

However, cleaning these crystal beauties posed a serious problem with hygiene. The bottle’s narrow neck made it hard to get a brush down into it, making it almost impossible to clean the inside surface of the bottle’s bulbous interior. But that changed in 1896 when William B. Fenn came up with the idea of a separating water bottle—one with pieces that could unscrew for easy cleaning.  On March 30 of the following year,  he applied for and received a patent for it.

Fenn’s separating water bottle had an ingenious design. He made the neck and base two separate pieces, with the bottom edge of the neck fitting inside the top rim of the base. A rubber gasket formed a waterproof seal between the two parts and a metal ring screwed over the joint to lock the pieces in place. 

Ceramic water bottle

Even though Fenn used glass for his original design, he stipulated in his patent that any material, including ceramics and porcelain, could be used for the bottle, itself, and any metal could be used for the joining ring as long it wouldn’t corrode.

It took nearly three years for Fenn's bottle to be available to the public. Priced at $4.50 each when they first came on the market in 1900, they were well beyond the means of the average person. Realizing he had to do something to increase sales, Fenn redesigned the pattern on the bottle so that it could be pressed instead of cut. Suddenly, the price per bottle dropped to 50 cents per bottle, or 34 cents each for a dozen, making the Fenn water bottle affordable for everyone.

Fenn’s invention was so successful that he decided to expand production. By October,1902, consumers could purchase a decanter

Fenn Royal water bottle

and stopper in four sizes—half pint, and one, two and three-pint versions. And during 1903; He expanded the line further to include other glass containers, such as   syrup pitchers and cruets, as well as bitters, cologne, and barber bottles, each with a different pattern.

The separating water bottle came in three models—the Royal, with a delicate design imitating cut crystal, the Imperial, also sold in two and three-pint capacities but without a pattern, the Optic, with a succession of single, convex protruding, vertical panels with rounded tops and bottoms, and the Colonial, featuring nine rounded panels with flat bottoms around the base. Each came in two and three-pint sizes, except the Colonial which also came in a half-gallon size.

In 1903, the Perfection Water Bottle Company and the Sterling Glass Company combined to create the Perfection Glass Company of Washington, Pennsylvania, with William Fenn as one of the initial investors. But the new company was only to last until 1907 when it closed its doors for lack of sales.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about  world's fairs in the 2020 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

 

Unrestored Victorian bathroom

QUESTION: My husband and I recently bought an old Victorian house and would like to restore the bathroom to its original look. Except we can’t seem to figure out what that look was. There are so many variations. Can you help us figure out which antique bathing accessories to use and perhaps a little about the decor?

ANSWER: Before you can begin to restore the bathroom in your Victorian home, you need to find out its age and style. A series of revival styles—Italianate, Renaissance Revival, Rococo Revival, Gothic Revival, Victorian Cottage, etc.—captured the imaginations of Victorian architects and they not only designed the exteriors in styles but the interiors to match. 

Until at least the 1870s, daytime trips to the outdoor toilet or “privy” were essential regardless of the weather. Somewhere around 1800 in the United States privies began to move indoors, usually to an old clothes closet, from which the term “water closet” or “WC” originated.. At first they generally had an earth filled hopper that could be removed for cleaning. An easily opened window and a

Victorian outhouse

tight fitting door kept fumes from the rest of the house. Even bathing demanded only a wooden tub and a warm kitchen, when people bothered at all. Washing up at the bedroom washstand where water froze in the pitcher in the winter did little to encourage cleanliness.

Even in the 1840s, people denounced bathtubs as a foppish English luxury that would corrupt the democratic simplicity of the American way of life. Doctors warned of "rheumatic fevers, inflamed lungs and zymotic diseases."

People installed the earliest Victorian bathrooms into regular rooms in their existing houses. They fitted the fixtures into wood to make the room feel similar to a parlor or a bedroom. Everything felt like furniture, and the room was decorated as such, with paintings, wallpaper, wainscoting, fabrics, and rugs—everything that would have been  in a normal room, but with a tub, sink, and toilet.

Wooden Victorian bathroom

Eventually, the Victorians realized that maybe wood wasn’t the best choice for a bathroom, especially when they installed hot water pipes and tanks in houses towards the late 19th century. It was then that a fascination with cleanliness occurred, and rooms became tiled covered in linoleum for the less wealthy. Bathroom fixtures, such as sinks and toilets, became made of one piece of porcelain which was so much easier to keep clean. Homeowners considered white a clean color that they would know when to clean.

Early Victorian bathroom made to look like a regular room

When bathrooms became stand-alone rooms, they were usually located at the back of the house, as out of the way as possible, to deal with sewer smells. With the invention of the S-Bend sewer system, plumbing could keep the smells out, so bathrooms could be located anywhere in the house, often under stairs or in former dressing rooms. The bath and sink were commonly in one room, and the toilet in another.

Early clawfoot bathtub

Adam Thompson of Cincinnati created the first built-in bathtub—a lead-lined mahogany monstrosity that weighed a ton. And when President Fillmore installed one in the White House in 1851, people criticized him for importing a "monarchial luxury into the official residence of the Chief Executive of the Republic."

The clawfoot bathtub became popular by the end of the 19th century as hot water tanks became more prevalent. Prior to this, people bathed in tin tubs. Often, in early bathrooms, to get the furniture feel, bathroom designers surrounded tubs with mahogany.

Enameled cast-iron Victorian clawfoot bathtub

But a growing belief that cleanliness was next to godliness, made the permanent bathtub inevitable. In 1`886, Good Housekeeping Magazine noted, "Cleanliness of the body being essential to the health of the individual, it must be admitted that a bathtub should be looked upon. not as a luxury, but as a necessity in even the humblest home.” 

At the time, homeowners could choose from seven basic types of bathtubs—enameled cast iron, tinned and "planished" copper; molded earthenware, tin, or less durable wood or zinc. Although porcelain tubs were the best choice, they cost the most.

Victorian porcelain pedestal sink

For the adventurous there were also disappearing tubs that folded into what passed as a wardrobe, electric tubs that sent a mild galvanic "curative" shock through the water, and the combination exerciser and shower, featuring step-pedals to power the flow of water. By this time, the bedroom washstand had given way to an elegant porcelain sink set into a marbletop with high-rise brass faucets. The smelly "water-closet" had become the china flush toilet and a source of pride.

More than simply utilitarian now, homeowners expected their bathrooms to complement the interior decor of their homes. The housewife learned to coordinate her varnished wallpaper to the rug, the curtains and even the stained glass window. 

Antique fixtures—soap dispensers, towel holders, free-standing towl racks, fancy hooks, and tumbler and toothbrush holders—all evoke a specific era in bath design. Victorian bathroom fixtures were often ornately designed, sporting gilded metals, intricate shapes, and occasionally sculpted leaves or wildlife. 

Victorian gas lamp bathroom sconce

Lighting fixtures are another option for adding a Victorian look to a bathroom. Brass was dominant material for these, as its durability and availability made it a great choice..

Early Victorian bathrooms had gas lamps out of necessity. By the second half of the 19th century, these were wall mounted. Electrical lighting fixtures didn’t appear in bathrooms until the mid 1890s, and then only in homes of the wealthy.

Architectural antique shops are the best place to find authentic antique Victorian bathroom fixtures. Some are also available online. For those that can’t be found, there are plenty of excellent reproductions available online. 

The same can be said for floor and wall coverings. Both are available in reproduction at home stores in reproduction patterns and durable materials. To get a sense of what bathrooms looked like in the second half of the 19th century, search for old photos of them online and study their contents and design.  

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about  world's fairs in the 2020 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.